Amphibious Housing Technology Project

Summary

CO2 Bambu, a Nicaraguan social enterprise specialized in building ecological bamboo houses, has designed a low-cost amphibious house that can increase the life quality of millions of vulnerable people living in flood prone areas. An amphibious house is one that sits on the ground the majority of the time, but which has the ability to rise up with rising waters during flooding events, and return to the ground when the waters recede.

Challenge

Due to climate change, floods are happening more frequently and with more devastating effects on communities worldwide. The current strategy to help vulnerable communities is to relocate them.
However, relocating these families breaks their connection to their income source (mostly agriculture and fishing), to their identity, and to each other. Moreover, this strategy is expensive and has largely failed, as families often return to their land seeking for a better quality of life.

Solution

We can help these communities living in flood prone areas by providing them with houses that can float when the water rises and return to the ground when it recedes. We call these AMPHIBIOUS HOUSES. This solution will enable vulnerable communities to remain in their land of origin and to maintain their ties to income, identity and support networks

Long-Term Impact

Help us deploy the first low-cost amphibious house in Malacatoya, Nicaragua, a community affected every year by the rising waters of the Malacatoya River . We need to build this first prototype before the October rainy season. Once tested, we will make this solution available to hundreds of NGO's, government agencies, and multinational organizations who can scale it world-wide.

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